


The Duality of Magnus

by alexcalibur



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Loss of Identity, Memory Loss, TAZ - Freeform, TMA, Violence, there's gonna be some wacky canon non-compliance as i try to meld together these two universes lmao, to clarify: canon-typical violence for tma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23606971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexcalibur/pseuds/alexcalibur
Summary: Y’all know that post going around about how there should be TMA/TAZ crossovers for characters with the same names? Well what if Magnus Burnsides and Jonah Magnus were the same person? “But Magnus Burnsides is GoodTM!” I hear you saying and yes, EXCEPT... for when he is possessed by Edward due to getting yeeted from his body by the animus bell. So... what if they never get Edward out of his body, then magnus!Edward somehow ended up in 1800s London? That’s PRECISELY the premise this little blurb is based on, which I’m hoping to expand on soon!Spoilers for up to the end of season 4 of TMA and the suffering game arc of TAZ!
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

Several times a century, Jonah makes a trip deep into the belly of the archives, into that wonderfully hidden place in which everything is laid bare: the panopticon. It’s the safest, most secluded place he knows of after all. No one has found it in nearly 200 years, so both his body and his most prized of possessions have been safe. He pushes open the heavy stone door and steps into the chamber. His nose wrinkles at the sight of his decaying body; though it was once a strong and capable body, it hasn’t exactly decayed gracefully and has collected layers of grime collected over the years. But as he approaches it his gaze lands on the small glinting object sitting in his corpse’s hands. He grins at this most unholy of artifacts, the object that has fuelled his reincarnation for so many centuries now: the animus bell. He plucks the small brass bell from the corpse’s stiff fingers and holds it up to his face. Green and blue and brown eyes all reflect back at him, though the colours are distorted from the bell’s brassy tones.

“Uh, Mr. Wright? Is everything quite alright in there?”

“Oh, better than alright Elias! Right, come on in now.”

Jonah straightens up and turns around to watch Elias Bouchard step hesitantly past the stone door into the panopticon. His footsteps echo behind him, and he jumps at the loud thud the door closing behind him.

“What is this place? And is that- a body?” Elias steps back, his eyes going wide.

“Why yes! Like I said, this place is the institute’s best kept secret. Only the head of the institute ever really sees this place, so you’re quite privileged to be here.” Elias swallows slowly and nods, though his eyes betray his confusion.

“And you’re letting me see it because…?”

Jonah grins and strides over to Elias to put his arm around his stiff shoulders.

“Why because you’re inheriting the place! Congratulations on the promotion Elias. Wish you could be around to see it.”

With this, Jonah flicks his wrist and the bell chimes lightly. The sound reverberates through the empty space.

Elias opens his mouth to protest, but whatever words he was going to say are cut off my the strangled scream that forces itself from his throat. A dark, thick fog pours from his throat along with the scream, and Jonah inhales deeply, relishing in the suffering. 

Elias grabs at his face with a sob, and when his legs go limp Jonah catches him and lowers him to the ground.

“I can’t- I can’t see! Mr. Wright, what’s- What have you done to me?”

He gasps in pain as Jonah lays his head on the cool stone floor.

“No need for you to worry about that, you won’t be around much longer anyway.”

Jonah prys Elias’ shaking hands from his eyes and traces his finger along the now-empty sockets. Bloody tear streaks drip from the edges of Elias’ eye sockets down the sides of his face. Jonah wipes them away with a handkerchief and a grimace.

“I can’t see, it hurts...” Elias’ voice trails off and eventually he goes quiet, his head lolling to the side. A glowing wisp of light drips out through Elias’ empty eyes and pools on to the floor. His face turns deathly pale and his chest no longer rises. There is no life left in his body. Jonah flicks his finger through the light and it swirls around like a golden mist. He holds the bell over this glowing pool, the essence Elias Bouchard, and the light drifts smoothy up into the body of the bell.

He lifts the bell to his face and grins as he sees that a confused pair of grey-blue eyes has now joined the mosaic that reflects back at him from the surface of the bell. Green and blue and brown. Bitter and resigned and furious. And now grey-blue eyes blink back at him and furrow in confusion and betrayal. And a bit of horror, he thinks smugly. 

He gives a wink to the many accusatory eyes. “I’ll see you all in a few decades, but for now…”

Jonah flicks the bell one last time and feels his own consciousness fade from his body. His vision goes black for a moment as his consciousness retreats into the black, incorporeal cloud of his lich form, which drifts across the gap between the two mens’ bodies. He feels the cool edges of his mist drift through still-warm pores and orfices, then he blinks and gasps a raspy breath into his new body. Into Elias’ body. He puts a hand to his chest and feels the air move in and out of his new lungs. They feel healthier than James’ lungs; his breaths are deeper than James Wright’s were after a lifetime of smoking. Jonah finally opens his eyes. Bright green eyes that glow with all the voyeuristic glee and anticipation of infiltrating this new body’s life. A smile spreads across Elias’ lips. He is renewed.

“I have an institute to run.”


	2. Dark and Full of Terrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How did our guy end up where he is? Read on to find out...

The world was dark and suffocating. Edward’s fingers brushed past layers upon layers of thick velvet, but even in his lich form he couldn’t phase through enough fabric to find purchase on any other surface. His head pounded and his eyes darted back and forth, desperately trying to find some identifying feature in this unknowable place. He tried to cast his mind back to remember why he was here but the effort sent sharp pangs through his mind. He let out a breath and grasped at a curtain to slide down to the floor. His whole body ached and he felt a horrid heat licking at his chest, as though a fireball had ripped straight through him. Something at the edge of his brain tickled at this thought, but before he had time to think about the thought being anything more than metaphor, his mind reeled again. He clutched his head with a moan. He couldn’t say how long it was before the pounding stopped, but he eventually dared to stand up. There was no way for him to know which way was which in here, and no indication as to which direction could get him closer to escaping this dark hell. So he moved forward.

Minutes or hours later, something new finally caught Edward’s eye. He clutched at the latest curtain that he had been pushing away and blinked at the sight before him. A giant eyeball, several feet in diameter, blinked back at him. The sclera glowed bright white in this dark place and he squinted at the sudden change in lighting. He held his breath and stared at the apparition, afraid that if he blinked again it may disappear. It floated at head level before him, and looked him up and down, then retreated into the curtain behind it.

“Wait, what-“ Edward croaked, reaching out to the eye. His face contorted in panic as he saw a red, green, and blue riff open behind the eye. “No! Don’t go!” He yelped. It paid him no mind as it floated serenely back into the rift. Edward didn’t know what it was, or where that rift went, but he knew that it might be his only chance out of this velvet abyss. He lunged toward the eye and stumbled through the closing edges of the rift. And then he was falling. 

Edward plummeted now through a new kind of darkness. This darkness was what he imagined falling off a cliff into an abyss with no bottom may resemble. Darkness in every direction, but no surface in reach. Just a cold, lonely emptiness. His rough cloak blew in every which direction, obscuring his vision for a moment then disappearing as his shoved it off his face. He squinted against the wind streaking past his face and spat a strand of hair out of his mouth. There had to be more to this place than emptiness. He scanned from side to side, but there was just more darkness. Frustrated, he threw he head back with a wail. To his surprise, he saw a speck of white sitting in the darkness far above him. A star? No, it was decreasing in size far too quickly to be a star. So then... _the eye._ It was moving away from him, and following its trajectory his unbeating heart froze. Far on the edge of this horizonless space he saw a massive, pulsing… thing. He could not say creature, but given the many specks of white adorning it, it did possess eyes. The rest of the abomination was threaded with the same glowing reds, greens, and blues of the portal he had come through, though with an underlying darkness that made the black sky around him seem positively bright. Dark tentacles protruded from every angle of the mass, reaching greedily into the empty expanse. It gave off an undeniable gravity too, and Edward noticed with concern that his trajectory was indeed curving back toward the mass. His stomach turned and he willed himself not to panic.

He shifted around, trying to find anything that could offset his trajectory. Glancing down he saw that far below his current position were several faintly glowing circles, distinct from the eyes above him. That was something. Something better than the deeply foreboding presence he was heading towards. He took a deep breath, ignored the pain in his chest, and shoved an arm out to cast a fireball in the direction opposite those circles. The fire that emerged was a dark black matching the creature around him. His stomach turned at the thought that the mass above him could be burning, but more pressingly he noticed that his trajectory had shifted slightly. He grunted and shot off another blast, further correcting his course. Little by little, he drained his power and the circles become bigger. As he got closer the circles resolved into circular arrangements of discs which resembled diagrams of the planar system. His heart leaped at the thought that one of these circle could lead him back home, but dropped just as quickly at the prospect of figuring out which one was the right one.

“Well,” he mouthed to himself, “eenie, meenie, miney…” And he sent one last blast into the space before him. The gravity of the abomination, now distant above him, had lessened enough that he felt his trajectory being pulled instead by the gravity of the nearest system. He accelerated slowly at first, but more quickly as he got closer. The planes before him radiated a light that became blinding the closer he got, like looking into a dozen suns. He couldn’t control his journey any further. He had no more magic left, and he was physically exhausted. The air began to turn hot and sharp against his skin, and he braced himself for what was sure to be a rough landing on a foreign world. He felt something brush against his arm and peeked his eyes open for a moment. To his surprise, the eye was now plummeting alongside him. He stared at it in a horrified shock, and it stared back. It’s pale sclera now seemed dark against the blinding sky, but Edward saw that its pupil was that same streaked rainbow pattern as the rift it had open. He stared back at his reflection in its glassy gaze, and saw tears streaking down his face. But he wasn’t crying, that wasn’t right. His eyes widened as he realized that it was not his reflection he was seeing, but his sister’s. _Lydia._

“No!” he screeched, clawing out towards her image. How could he have forgotten her, was he mad? His head pounded as the memories came flooding back. His sister and he had been fighting Taako, Merle, and Magnus, he had stolen Magnus’ body, then something had gone wrong and… and then the lich within that cursed dark place had found him. 

“ _Lydia_ , come back!” He couldn’t be on his own. They’d been together for so long that he didn’t know what he’d do without her. He reached to grab the reflection, and to his surprise his hand sunk into the tendrils within this eye’s iris. His hand grasped on to something- another hand. He waited for Lydia to pull him through, but seconds later the hand was still unmoving. They were quickly approaching the physical plane, and Edward knew he was almost out of time.

“Alright then, I guess you're coming over here-“ He grunted and pulled at the hand. The tendrils within the eye moved to the side to make way for the emerging form. An arm emerged, followed by shoulders and a head. The _wrong_ head. It was that goddamn buffoon whose body he had abducted. Edward cried out in fury, and heaved at the body. If he couldn’t have his sister then those tactless idiots certainly weren’t getting their friend’s body back. He clutched at Magnus’ lifeless form and clawed his incorporeal fingers down Magnus's arms in rage. He felt something cool grasped in Magnus’s hand, and pried his fist open. The animus bell. Ha. How silly it seemed now. The world was now blinding white and hot now, and tears streaked down Edward’s face. This time he knew the tears were his. With one final move, Edward flicked the bell to toss himself into Magnus’ corpse. He felt his soul drift into the hulking vessel, and had barely a moment to revel in the strength of a corporeal form before the impact into the plane knocked any semblance of consciousness out of him.

Edward opened his eyes with a gasp, heart pounding. _It was just a dream._ He thought. _Ground yourself, Edward... Magnus. You're Magnus Burnsides._ His eyes scanned for light in the dark, and his breathing slowed as he spotted the still-lit lamp next to his bed. _No, not him either. Jonah Magnus, James Wright… Elias. Elias Bouchard, that’s it._ He let the tension out of his body with a sigh, and sunk into his bed. Another sleepless night, it would seem. He put his hand up to his chest and felt for his necklace. There, it had slipped behind his shoulder. He slid the locket back towards his chest and rubbed his thumb over the silver casing. He couldn’t see the pattern but his thumb knew the L design well. For a few minutes he watched the light flicker across the ridges of the popcorn ceiling, before sitting up and resigning himself to the morning.


End file.
